Monday, January 04, 2016

At the beginning of every month, I draw up a comprehensive list of what I hope to accomplish and enjoy. It's kind of daunting to see it all written out--it runs to several pages-- but once I have it down I can start plugging things into each week or each day, and they're far more likely to get done this way.

My sections are:

Routine Cleaning (chores that happen once a month)

Special Cleaning (each month is different; my deep cleaning is spread out over the year)

12 comments:

Oh, I love this! Thank you for sharing yours...I'm intrigued by the categories. I do something similar, but not the same. My children are still pretty young, so I break the year into quarters, and determine what I am going to focus on during that season....usually half a dozen or so things. (Sometimes I break *those* goals down into weeks/months as well.) I don't have the same sub-categories...no legal work right now except my own!....and I like the idea of fleshing out specific categories for focus. I also set some basic educational goals for my children, or even life skills for them (like tying shoes, learning a new chore, etc.).

I have to say, the fact that your list is several pages long for the month astonished me at first, until I realized that my daily to-do list sometimes takes a whole page of notebook paper. Sometimes I think we do a lot more than we realize in life!

Anna you would not credit this -- I had just finished making my month's plans when I came to do my blog reading! We overlap in several areas although I have inspiration from your list with Creative and Kitchen projects. I tend to let the latter "happen" so, inevitably, I miss something I meant to do in a season or time. Thank you for your ideas.

I find monthly planning is such a good way to ensure we meet those bigger goals that can slip under the radar with the everyday.

I love this. I tend to keep a running "To Do" list with everything jumbled together. I used to keep everything in my head, but years ago, hubby taught me the joy of striking finished items off a list.😊 (Although, really, my memory used to seem inexhaustible. I never needed to keep a calendar. I just remembered birthdays, appointments, assignments, etc. Now I tend to forget things that aren't written down. I wonder if that's BECAUSE I started writing it down, and let my memory get rusty.)

I am a listmaker and very organized, but I only work from week to week. I keep the larger foci in my head, but as I get older, I think some of them quietly slip out of my memory. As I tend to be very organized and controlled and plan oriented, I feel that it keeps me somewhat balanced to wing it sometimes :)

Rose, I will often add those spur-of-the-moment seasonal projects that I did on to my list retroactively, so that when I pull it out next year (I review them as I go along) I can remember if there is anything nice that I want to add.

Pat, I just print out a straight-down-the-page list off my computer, broken up into sections.

This is the kind of organization I crave. Please tell me you didn't do this when your kids were young? So I can feel that there's hope? I call my brand of organization at this point "organized chaos" ;) Maybe if I had more energy I could manage more. Was there anything you did/ate to restore and maintain energy when you had littles? Maybe you can write a post about what your life looked like when your kids were young? To those of us who come here for the breath of fresh beauty and inspiration but who are still in the trenches of diapers, potty training, phonics, and preteen emotions.

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Photography

Photography is an important part of life at my house. Photos that appear here are taken by Giles, by the Composer, and by me. Giles is a real, paid photographer, and he uses a Sony Alpha. Most of the photography prior to September 2008 is his. Since then I have done most of the shooting and I use a Konica Minolta. Additionally, the Composer offers me nice shots on occasion, often from his little Canon point and shoot. I've given up trying to note who's done what. Thanks for your interest!